August 2014

August 31, 2014

I can pretend to talk about Kenji Mizoguchi as if I have long been aware of him as a filmmaker. The fact is that I discovered his work and his great artistry simultaneously and serendipitously barely four days ago. Until August 28, Kenji Mizoguchi was non-existent for me. No longer.

There is unusual joy in discovering someone and instantly celebrating their obvious genius. I found Mizoguchi on Hulu as part of their free Criterion collection offering. It was the minimalist austerity of the image of a woman in the poster that drew me. The accompanying description was adequate but it was the asceticism of the image that did it for me. The film ‘The Life of Oharu’, like all things stereotypically Japanese in my mind, is a precisely arranged experience. Unfolding within its sharply manicured frames is the life of a woman called Oharu (Kinuyo Tanaka). More than anything else I was struck by how brilliantly Mizoguchi and his cinematographers Yoshimi Hirano and Yoshimi Kono position the patriarchal oppression of women in the 17th century Japan inside an exquisitely clutter-free ambience. The neatness of the surroundings contrasts disturbingly with the oppressive nature of its subject where Oharu goes through her life through a series of problems.

Conditioned as our minds are by the frenzies of the 21st century life, watching the measured pace of the film, not to mention the measured steps that all its characters walk in, requires some mental adjustment. For me it is somewhat unsettling that such physical orderliness that Japan is so famous for, albeit deliberately devoid of too many objects, can hide so much oppression. Mizoguchi packs the film with various manifestations of male chauvinism, sexism and piggishness all of which crash against Oharu’s tenacious but much reviled and ravaged existence as a prostitute. The film begins with Oharu and others of her profession ruing the fate of ageing prostitutes. It is bad enough to be a prostitute and then it is compounded by advancing age when male clients increasingly find faults with their bodies.

Mizoguchi’s reputation as a director who had a special understanding of women is there all across the film. His Oharu, frequently trampled upon by the prevailing social order, never seems to lose her essence as a person and, more importantly, as a woman. From her life as a courtesan to someone chosen to bear an heir for the local nobleman Lord Matsudaira and from an uprooted woman of beauty of whom many men take advantage to someone committing herself to the Buddha, it is quite a sweep.

It was perhaps because of the utter neatness of the framing that I kept thinking of Satyajit Ray’s ‘Charulata’ throughout watching “The Life of Oharu.” I found out that Ray came to know of Mizoguchi as a filmmaker after he himself had become a filmmaker. The Life of Oharu’s visual pace is quite like the way its many kimono-clad women walk—in tiny steps which when hurried make it seem like they are struggling to defy some invisible shackles. Class consciousness is pervasive throughout the film where those of lower ranks or at lower station in life forever seem bent in obsequiousness.

Soon after watching the first few minutes of the film I felt like digitally painting my own version of Oharu. Here it is. I painted it in color but for your edification I have also given you its black and white version.

August 30, 2014

Here is an imaginary phone conversation between Werner Heisenberg (WH) and Erwin Schrodinger (ES) that I have imagined to have taken place in the early 1930s, let’s say 1933. The situation is that the two great physicists were supposed to meet for coffee at a café in Berlin but Heisenberg has been delayed. So he telephones Schrodinger at the café.

A waiter tells Schrodinger that there is a call for him.

ES: Where are you? When are you reaching? I have been waiting for half an hour.

WH: I couldn’t tell you precisely where I am and when I might reach?

ES: I asked where you are and not where particles are.

WH: I am, like we all are, made up of particles. So if we cannot simultaneously tell a particle’s position and momentum with any precision, how am I going to tell you where I am and when I might reach?

ES (Sounding a bit exasperated): Werner, I don’t want to get into the whole physics of particles and position and momentum with you on phone.

WH: Why? Is it because you think I may not understand it? I am the whole physics of particles and position and momentum after all.

ES: That’s funny. So what’s taking you so long?

WH: Oh some problem at home but I thought I should call you to get started on what we planned to discuss while I reach.

ES: And you don’t know when you might reach because…

WH: I know my position. I am at home. But I don’t know about my momentum because it depends.

ES: Depends on what?

WH: It depends on so many variables, including whether there is a parade by those horrible Brown Shirts. We both know there is no predicting their position and momentum. Now that is one tough uncertainty that I oppose based on my principles.

They both laugh.

ES: Tell me anyway how this whole principle of your works. What are you saying really? It makes no sense to me. Are you saying that the act of observation affects a particle such that we cannot determine its position? Are you saying that our act of observation physically affects that particle?

WH: Erwin, Erwin, dear friend, you cannot be that simplistic. You know the so-called observer effect works at the quantum level. I don’t have to tell you that.

ES: Yes, yes but the whole Uncertainty Principle makes no sense to me. It is too clever for its own good.

WH: Says the man who locks up an imaginary cat inside an imaginary box with an imaginary vial of radioactive poison and then says the cat can be both dead and alive? Yeah, what’s with the cat? If it does not exist, why should it be dead or alive?

ES: So are you coming or not?

WH: Yes.

ES: Yes to coming or yes to not?

WH: Think of me as your cat. I may come or not because I may exist or not or both exist and not exist.

They both laugh again.

Note: I occasionally indulge in such non-sense. I wrote a piece about Schrodinger’s felinicide trial sometime ago. Read it here.

August 29, 2014

It was inevitable that India’s most professionally produced rural newspaper Gaon Connection would win excellence in journalism honors. It has just managed its first and that too the one regarded as the country’s most prestigious—the Ramnath Goenka Award instituted by the Indian Express newspaper. Quite appropriately, Gaon Connection has won in the ‘Uncovering India Invisible’ category.

Gaon Connection is a result of the singular passion of its founder Neelesh Misra, ably aided by his brother Manish and father, Dr. Shiva Misra. It is Neelesh’s sensitivity towards the India that is marginalized and often disenfranchised, not to mention frequently derided, that led to the founding of the newspaper. In keeping with Neelesh and his team’s open-minded view of rural India, Gaon Connection has consistently produced reportage that is consciously shorn of condescension. When the paper was launched on December 2, 2012, this is what I wrote about it.

In a country where the tail often wags the dog it is hardly surprising that 31.16 percent urban population also sets the national agenda for the whole of India, including 68.84 percent rural population.

In cold statistical terms a little over 377 million urban Indians dominate more than 833 million rural Indians when it comes to the country’s development discourse, policymaking and economic direction. You can also think of this as the tail leading the cow.

Although successive Indian governments have poured hundreds of billions of rupees in rural subsidies since India’s independence in 1947 and made a significant difference in rural poverty, the country’s 640,867 villages remain visibly backward compared to its over 14,000 towns and cities.

The rural-urban divide has always been so stark in India that Indians make a distinction between Bharat (the country’s traditional name) consisting of its vast rural, often impoverished and toiling masses and India consisting of its urban, often prosperous population.

My friend and fellow journalist Neelesh Misra (Read The mayor of Memory Town) and some of his close associates will launch “Gaon Connection” (Village Connection), described as “India’s rural newspaper’, tomorrow. The basic idea is to create an entirely rural-focused newspaper staffed predominantly by rural journalists. Its mission is to “Give a voice to rural India” and help bridge some of the rural-urban information divide.

While some of India’s 11,000 newspapers and journals do have elements of rural focus, there are not too many that are entirely driven by rural content and concern. ‘Gaon Connection’ begins first in all the 40 districts of India’s largest state Uttar Pradesh, home to over 155 million rural population which is India’s largest in a single state accounting for over 18 percent of the national total.

Only those who work at Gaon Connection know what a tough slog it has been for a newspaper that eschews the shallow glamor so evident in the blather that the country’s 24/7 television news channels produce. I know for a fact that Gaon Connection has survived only because the whole team has put excellence in journalism before the size of their remuneration. I am sure this award will come as a shot in the arm for the youthful team. It is eminently deserved. So here is to Gaon Connection going national soon.

August 28, 2014

It is not as if readers are breaking my door down to publish this stupid little blog. So no harm done that it is late today, late by three full hours.

Going through the Archaeological Survey of India collection on the Google Art Project, I came across these two lovely drawings/engravings (Time Life Copyright). The first one depicts a Buddhist monument near Sarnath and the second one is a scene near Chillah Tarah Ghaut on the river Betwah in Bundelkhund. I am not sure about their period but they seem to be from the 1830s.

Apart from their superb proportions, there are many striking things about these. All such drawings/engravings of the era by the British colonial officers have a remarkable eye for detail and dimensions. They all capture the serenity of the time without being apparently affected by it themselves. The artists’ presence appears minimum in a way that even while these are individual views they still come across as faithful record of particular moments where the artist has carefully avoided editorializing.

I like the detailed byline system that is evident in both. The first one has been credited as “Drawn by W. Purser, Sketched by Capt. R Elliot, R.N., and Engraved by W. Taylor.” The second one was “Drawn by H. Melville, Sketched by Colonel Barton and Engraved by S. Bradshaw.” There is a clear and predictable order in the byline description.

I particularly like the fonts which they have obviously stenciled.They are like engraved font so typical of the time.

August 27, 2014

Mary Williams Walsh of The New York Times has a very interesting story about the jostling going on between the creditors and city authorities as Detroit struggles to deal with its bankruptcy. Perhaps the most important piece at the heart of this battle is Detroit’s world famous collection of global arts and how its enormous value can act as a collateral that can save the city. I would not like to go into all the complex details about the value of the great collection has been appraised but estimates vary between $4.6 billion and $8.1 billion, depending on which appraiser you believe.

My interest in the story is from the standpoint of the artists whose works are the property of the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA). Apart from the masters such as Bruegel, Cezanne, Matisse, Van Gogh, Picasso and Rivera, the DIA also has some ancient sculptures from India and Pakistan. Two in particular, the Boddhisattva Padmapani (200/400 CE) and Vishnu (10the century) caught my eye while browsing through the collection. I am a sucker for such historical connections. Would the sculptors of these two works have ever imagined that centuries down the line their creations may save a city in a wholly alien civilization 10,000 miles away? Vishnu the Preserver seems to doing what he does best—preserve if you believe in such things. I don’t but it is still a great story to tell. Two sculptors, whose eras were at least five centuries apart, toiling away on their pieces not even imagining in their wildest fantasy that one day, a millennium and more after their deaths their works would not only survive but showcased. I don’t know how much these pieces are appraised at individually as part of the bankruptcy calculations but they are bound to be fairly pricey.

The details of their provenance that museum carries on its website makes for an interesting reading. The one with the Vishnu statue says, “Donor purchased the work from Eleanor Abraham Asian Art, NY, March 2001. The sculpture was consigned by a London dealer, a Mr. Ahujah (now deceased), in February-March 2001 for the Asia Pacific Show during Asia Week in NY. Ms. Abraham understood at the time from Mr. Ahujah that this work was part of a large group of Indian objects purchased when the collection of an 85 year-old British gentleman was dispersed. She was also informed that the same gentleman had purchased the objects many years before from Mr. Ahujah. See curatorial file for more details.”

The one with the Boddhisattva statue says, “French private collection, pre-1976 Sold Beurdeley et CIE, Paris, 1976 Private collection, south of France, 1976-1997 Sold Sotheby's The Indian Sale, London, May 8, 1997, lot 12 English private collection, 1997-2006.”

The 175-piece Asian Art section of the DIA has some captivating pieces.

It is a matter of detail how the city and its creditors eventually resolve the debt but I am guessing with such a highly valued collateral it may not be that hard. That still does not resolve the original question in my mind—what about the original artists who created the works to begin with? I don’t think anyone from the city of Detroit would be in a hurry to track down the descendants of the Gandhara sculptor of the Boddhisattva and thank them.

August 26, 2014

This is for the third time that I am publishing the following post, the first two were in February and March this year. It is precisely because it emphasizes impermanence as the core of everything there is that I am republish it. Going by the logic intrinsic to Buddha’s thought, what I published in February and March passed the moment I published it. So no harm doing it again.

The idea of Anitya or Anicca* or Impermanence has captured my imagination for as long as I remember. That it is at the core of Buddha’s philosophy is something I discovered only when I was 18 or 19. I have since reflected on it many times, including the whole of yesterday and this morning. Hence this post.

It is a spectacularly brilliant explanation of everything there is as long as you understand that everything there is is there in that passing moment and hence it is really not there. The idea of Anitya can be deeply disturbing; especially because it removes what we like to call the essence. It can be deeply affecting for those stuck in the morass of corporeal certitudes about reality.

As part of my overall reading for the Dalai Lama biography ‘Man Monk Mystic’ I read many books. However, the one that has managed to make an impact is the 1916 edition of “Buddha and the Gospel of Buddhism” by the extraordinary scholar of Indian culture and arts Ananda Coomaraswamy (22 August 1877 − 9 September 1947).

There is a lot to reflect over in this book first published in London by George G. Harrap & Company. For the purposes of this post I would like to reproduce a brief passage about Anitya or Anicca. I must caution that it may sound rather abstruse at first but invest some thought in it and the idea will stand utterly illuminated. Of course, your comprehension will disappear as soon as you have attained it.

How essential in Buddhism is the doctrine of the eternal succession of causes appears from the fact it is often spoken as the gospel:

“I will teach you the Dhamma,” says Gautama, “That being present, this becomes; from the arising of that, this arises. That being absent, this does not become; from the cessation of that, this ceases.”

We read again that “Dhamma-analysis is knowledge concerning conditions.”

What he thought was designed to avoid the two extreme doctrines of realism and nihilism, the belief in phenomenal being and the belief that there is no phenomenal process at all. “Everything is: this, O Kaccana**, is one extreme view. Everything is not: this is the second extreme view. Avoiding both these extremes the Tathagata*** teaches the Norm by the Mean.” This doctrine of the Mean asserts that everything is a becoming, a flux without beginning (first cause) or end; there exists no static moment when this becoming attains to beinghood—no sooner can we conceive it by the attributes of name and form, it has transmigrated or changed to something else. In place of an individual, there exists a succession of instants of consciousness.

“Strictly speaking the life of a living being is exceedingly brief, lasting only while a thought lasts. Just a chariot wheel in rolling rolls only at one point of the tire, and in resting rests only at one point; in exactly the same way, the life of a living being lasts for the period of one thought. As soon as that thought has ceased, the living being is said to have ceased.

“As it has been said:

“The being of a past moment of thought has lived, but does not live, nor will it live.

“The being of a future moment of thought will live, but has not lived nor does it live.

“The being of the present moment of thought does live, but has not lived, nor will it live.”

As Coomaraswamy points out, “We are deceived if we allow ourselves to believe that there is ever a pause in the flow of becoming, a resting place where positive existence is attained for even the briefest duration of time.”

Life as a series of moments always transmigrating is an astounding concept. Think about this assertion: “In place of an individual, there exists a succession of instants of consciousness.” It is poetic, profound and purely cerebral. Look at his explanation of moments which have passed, which are, and which are yet to to be. It is so finely sliced. This is the mind of someone to whom everything stood fully explained.

I am willing to assert that as a purely cerebral living goes, there has been nothing that has surpassed Buddha since Buddha with the possible exception of Albert Einstein. In the timeline that we understand, that would be some 2500 years. It is ironic that for someone who emphasized the idea of Anitya or Anicca or Impermanence above all else seems to have lasted quite a while.

I would strongly recommend Coomaraswamy’s outstanding book to anyone who is interested in, for want of a better word, the gospel of Buddhism. I have always found it odd that a philosophy of impermanence should be given a traditional structure. But that is a separate discussion.

* Words such as Anicca or Dhamma are the Pali language versions of Anitya and Dharma

** Kaccana is Pali for Katyayana who was a disciple of Buddha.

*** Tahtagata is how Buddha referred to himself. It is interpreted to mean many things but mostly it is “The one who has thus gone” or “The one who has thus come.”

August 25, 2014

The year was 1983. By some sleight of hand friend and fellow journalist Ashok Row Kavi, who was also my chief reporter at the Free Press Journal, had managed to organize a special screening of Richard Attenborough’s ‘Gandhi’ exclusively for the paper’s staffers at the National Film Development Corporation’s preview theater at Worli in Bombay. I was one of them.

Thirty one years hence, I vividly remember feeling exhilarated after watching the three hours and eleven minutes long epic. I was struck by the irony of an Englishman having reintroduced Mohandas Gandhi to India with such passion and thoughtfulness. I doubt if any other Indian filmmaker with the eminent exception of Satyajit Ray could have made the film on the scale and with the finesse that Attenborough did. I am also unsure if Ray would have been happy making it on the scale Attenborough did.

My reference points to Attenborough, who has died at 90, are very limited—two as an actor and one as a director. I remember him as one of the ensemble cast in ‘The Great Escape’, a 1963 World War II movie where he played a British officer who masterminds the escape along with Steve McQueen. The other is him as Lt. Gen. Sir James Outram in Ray’s underrated ‘Shatranj Ke Khiladi’. As the English officer given the unpleasant task of unseating Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of Oudh Attenborough did a terrific job of capturing a mélange of conflicting emotions. This is one of the movies I watch frequently and impulsively and yet never fail to be amused by Outram’s amusement at Wajid Ali Shah’s whims and fancies. Soon after Amitabh Bachchan’s excellent narration introducing the theme of the film based on the novel by the great Munshi Premchand, the film opens with Outram seeking a report from Weston, one of his officers (Tom Alter) about Shah. Attenborough did a fine job of balancing his natural curiosity about the Nawab of Oudh and his nearly mandatory imperious condescension as a senior British colonizer.

Coming back to ‘Gandhi’, its effect was magical because of the sheer sweep of its ambition. It was Attenborough’s most cherished project for which he practically bankrupted himself. He had lived with it for over 20 years and eventually produced it himself. In those days it cost him $22 million, which in today’s terms could be nearly $60 million. As we emerged from the preview theater, there was general elation at what one had just seen. The film was, of course, the crowning achievement of Attenborough’s movie career. Although he was only 59, it would have been obvious to him that he could not have surpassed it. However, he did try with ‘Chaplin’ in 1992 but did not succeed anywhere close to ‘Gandhi’.

In the run-up to the making of ‘Gandhi’ Attenborough had met many people in India to do his research. One of the vexing questions before he eventually cast Ben Kingsley was how to portray someone who is regarded in India as near divinity. I remember Attenborough saying he was taken aback when one of many Gandhians suggested that instead of a human actor, he should use a lamp to represent Gandhi. The Gandhian’s logic being that Gandhi was so great that no human could do justice to him. Quite wisely and mercifully, Attenborough paid no heed to the pious hokum of a suggestion.

‘Gandhi’, notwithstanding its much cinematic abridgment and license, should be made a required viewing in Indian schools.

August 24, 2014

Before I make a couple of points about ‘A Most Wanted Man’, a minor observation about Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character Günther Bachmann’s chain smoking and drinking in the film. There is such urgent apathy to the way he reflexively smokes and drinks that perhaps for the first time while watching a film I felt like saying it out aloud to a character, “Please stop. I beg you to stop.” My wanting to say that was as much a tribute to Hoffman’s performance as it was out of the melancholic knowledge—in hindsight, of course—that one was watching an actor not too far from his death real life. A lot of actors manage to capture the cruel delights of smoking but I think none does with such destructive albeit passing relish as Hoffman. So that’s that.

Contrary to many reviews, I found director Anton Corbijn’s earlier film ‘The American’ with George Clooney as a contract assassin rather compelling. So there was that visual style reference in my mind coupled with an acute awareness about ‘A Most Wanted Man’s creator John le Carré’s reputation as an absolute master of deeply thoughtful espionage thrillers. On both fronts, I came out satisfied. Add to that Hoffman’s unsettling ability to radiate intelligent intensity as an actor and you have a real treat. In his brilliant tribute to Hoffman in The New York Times, le Carré had said this about the late actor: “In retrospect, nothing of that kind surprised me about Philip, because his intuition was luminous from the instant you met him. So was his intelligence. A lot of actors act intelligent, but Philip was the real thing: a shining, artistic polymath with an intelligence that came at you like a pair of headlights and enveloped you from the moment he grabbed your hand, put a huge arm round your neck and shoved a cheek against yours; or if the mood took him, hugged you to him like a big, pudgy schoolboy, then stood and beamed at you while he took stock of the effect.”

All of what le Carré says about Hoffman was in evidence throughout the film. As a middle-aged German intelligence officer in the midst of the labyrinthine world of Islamic terrorism, Hoffman does such an immersive job that you feel as if he may not have done anything else in his career. In almost any recent role that Hoffman did he had that nervy, edgy earnestness that suggested an actor both in complete control of and total surrender to his craft. “A Most Wanted Man’ is, of course, a carrier of le Carré’s worldview, in particular of the devious and deceitful conduct of Western, really American, intelligence post-9/11. Hoffman’s Bachmann has a more nuanced, even if it is eventually partisan, take on the players who plot terrorism. Like all his novels and films, ‘A Most Wanted Man’ presumes a certain level of intelligence and attention span among its readers and viewers. He steadfastly refuses to spoon-feed the elementary. Corbijn, whose ‘The American’ was not nearly as conversational, does an effective job of capturing le Carré’s often perspective-heavy exchanges.

Unlike ‘The American, which after watching you may want to head for the charming Italian village where it was shot, the Hamburg of ‘A Most Wanted Man’ is a place you would want to give the go by to. The director and cinematographer Benoît Delhomme make sure that Hamburg does not come across as touristy pretty because its underlying mood is anything but touristy and pretty. Except for a few scenes such as the one when the young human rights lawyer Annabel Richter played by Rachel McAdams takes the half-Russian, half-Chechen Muslim character Issa Karpov played by Grigoriy Dobrygin to the terrace of her brother’s apartment where the sun is setting, the feel of almost the entire film is wet, blue/gray and brooding. It is not a happy world that the novel portrays and certainly not a happy world that Corbijn conveys either.

The broad story is about how after 9/11, Hamburg, where Mohammad Atta and others plotted the New York and Washington attacks 2001, has become a playground for shadowy and often morally ambiguous intelligence operatives track down potential planners of terror plots. Karpov, of course, fits that stereotype in the face of it. However, he is anything but. At some level, le Carré tries to give him the austerities of Islam as he understands it. You also have characters such as Dr. Faisal Abdullah (Homayoun Ershadi), an Islamic scholar and apparent humanitarian who uses some of his charities to divert funds to Islamic extremist groups.

Corbijn manages to tease high quality performances out of his entire cast. Of course, Hoffman elevates his to a whole new level but even William Dafoe as a shady banker is outstanding in many scenes. Dobrygin as a traumatized Russian-Chechen refugee in Hamburg and McAdams as his lawyer produce highly commendable performances. That it was Hoffman’s last film was something I managed to keep out of my thinking while watching it. Notwithstanding, I was aware of le Carré’s fine astute observation in his Times tribute that said, “Like Chatterton, he went seven times round the moon to your one, and every time he set off, you were never sure he’d come back, which is what I believe somebody said about the German poet Hölderlin: Whenever he left the room, you were afraid you’d seen the last of him. And if that sounds like wisdom after the event, it isn’t. Philip was burning himself out before your eyes. Nobody could live at his pace and stay the course, and in bursts of startling intimacy he needed you to know it.”

It may not be a great film but ‘A Most Wanted Man’ is a most watchable film. If you get the sense that, like in ‘The American’, Corbijn is not quite getting to the heart of it, you have to conclude that that’s just the way he does his films.

August 23, 2014

At a time when jehadis are beheading and Ebola is devouring people, it seems like an embarrassingly trivial problem to decide whether wives and girlfriends of Indian cricketers should be allowed to go on foreign tours. That said, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is alarmed after the Indian Test cricket team suffered a humiliating 3-1 defeat against England in England recently. One of the board’s conclusions that the terribly distracting presence of the wives and girlfriends or WAGs as they are actually called was responsible for the debacle.

I am not going to go into the whole physics of whether wives are more distracting or girlfriends because the former have lost their allure and the latter have still not but the debate is farcical because the actual problem of losing and winning in a cricket game is farcical. Those who play often win or lose. It is in the nature of any sport. That someone actually wins or loses in a game that goes on for five days is cause enough for celebration.

Going by the media reports in India, the England test debacle has been squarely blamed on the WAGs. As it were, tongues are WAGging about how demanding WAGs take away the players from focusing on the game and compel them to indulge in wifely or girlfriendly (the second is not a word but it is a thing) pursuits of shopping and tourism. “The England tour has been an eye-opener for everyone. From whatever information we have gathered, it’s been seen that even if players wanted to focus on their cricket, their wives were being a big distraction. When some wanted to go to the gym or do nets, they couldn’t do so because their wives wanted to explore the city. So we have planned that after this England series, we will curb the number of days the wives spend with their husbands on tour,” an unnamed BCCI official told Devendra Pandey of The Indian Express.

Cricket is not a bring your WAGs or mistresses (Let’s call it WAGAM) to work sport. There are not too many other professions, apart from those of cricketers’ and actors’, where WAGAMs are allowed at your place of work. In fact, many men and women go to work only so that they can get away from husbands and WAGAMs (Let’s call it HUWAGAMs). It is the BCCI’s business to take its sport rather seriously. Within the farce that is cricket or any other sport for that matter their controlling bodies have to enforce some measure of discipline.

Of the players that were part of the team that lost in England, Virat Kohli has come in for particular criticism because of his subpar performance which is now being blamed on the presence of his reported girlfriend and Hindi movie star Anushka Sharma. My dear friend and great cricket writer Shireesh Kanekar makes a couple of compelling points in his Marathi language column in the Saamna newspaper in Mumbai. He points out that the humor and jokes about poor performances have remained the same over the decades even as the players about whom they are made have changed. In particular, he refers to the many jokes about Virat Kohli one of which goes like this: Kohli asks Sharma after their marriage where they should go for honeymoon. Anushka suggests England. “Not England,” he says. “Why not England?” she wonders. “Because I can’t perform in England,” replies Kohli. This joke has been made before in the context of other players. As Shireesh points out the jokes remain the same, it is only the players who change.

Another point Shireesh makes is in relation to a particularly stinging column written by the iconic Indian batsman Sunil Gavaskar about the disastrous England tour. Shireesh reminds Gavaskar about the 1974 Test match tour of England by then Indian team, of which the self-same Gavaskar was a prominent member. In a particular test, India scored a poultry 42 runs. The scoreboard of the runs by the Indians read: Gavaskar 5, Farokh Engineer 0, Ajit Wadekar 3, Gundappa Vishwanath 5, Brijesh Patel 1, Eknath Solkar 18, Abid Ali 3, Madan Lal 2, Erapalli Prasanna 4, Bishen Singh Bedi 0 and Bhagwat Chnadrasekhar 0.

August 22, 2014

For someone like me leading a middling, mediocre life, edification comes from writing about those who don’t. It is just a coincidence that on second consecutive day, I am writing about a yogi, Yesterday, it was about B K S Iyengar who died at age 96. Today, it is about Paramhansa Yogananda.

A compelling new documentary ‘Awake:The Life of Yogananda” has set off this post. As always, I reflexively look for tangential connections between people and events. There is one between Iyengar and Yogananda. Iyengar first arrived in America (New York to be precise) in 1956, four years after Yogananda had died in 1952 in Los Angeles. But that was not before Yogananda had primed the American mind for yoga, Indian spirituality and deeper metaphysical pursuits. He had already been described by the Los Angeles Times as the first superstar guru of the 20th century. In short, way before there was Iyengar, there was Yogananda.

In keeping with the tradition of brilliant branding among spiritual gurus, Mukunda, his given name, went on to be renamed Yogananda. His name was, of course, a clever fusion of Yog and Anand, which together mean someone who draws bliss (Anand) from Yog. Yog comes from the Sanskrit root “yuj” meaning “to join”. That is enough free explanation for now.

The documentary has been directed by Paola di Florio, Lisa Leeman and narrated by the actor Anupam Kher. The trailer helpfully points out that the only book on Steve Jobs’ iPad was “The Autobiography of a Yogi”, Yogananda’s eternal best-seller. The documentary is getting a limited release in New York and Los Angeles in October.

I often say half in jest and half seriously—well, 40 percent in jest and 60 percent in seriousness—that I was born fully aware. The world as we live in has stood thoroughly explained to me for as long as I remember. I say this notwithstanding how utterly conceited, arrogant and pompous it sounds. That makes my interest in others who say they were born fully aware mildly academic. I suppose we all carry our own very personal interpretation of the world that is handed to us without our consent and taken away without our approval.

Yogananda arrived in America in 1920. “God is taking me away to America,” is what he is believed to have said. In my case, money brought me to America. That is what I mean by a middling, mediocre life. Not seeing a grander purpose than one’s bare survival is one of the features of that mediocre life. As the documentary points out, 6,000 people showed up to hear this “renowned lecturer, educater and psychologist from India”. (Educater is the spelling from an announcement of the time). It takes considerable gumption to land in a land 10,000 miles away from home and presume to lecture, educate and psycho analyze. It is extraordinary how any successful or even not so successful guru has limitless self-assurance. I say this as a compliment. Given his obvious charisma and the unusual content of his message, he was promptly put on a government watch list. Suspicion of those who look different and talk different and wear different has been part of the U.S. establishment for a long time.

I look forward to watching this documentary even though its first release has skipped Chicago, which incidentally received Swami Vivekananda with as much effusion and suspicion in 1893, the year when Yogananda was born. I told you about my weakness for tangential connections. So before there was Yogananda, there was Vivekananda.